Not a Good Start to 2015. We Can Do Better.

Last night, New Year’s Eve, the radical “creationist” organization, Answers in Genesis, spent who knows how many thousands of dollars to run the following ad in Time Square during the US’s biggest NYE party.

Time Square is not the only place AiG plans on promoting this message; the above digital billboard is scheduled to air in DC and Boston as well as AiG’s hometown.

I’m just going to say it. If you’re reading this and if you give financially to Answers in Genesis, please prayerfully consider withdrawing your support.

This is not the message of Jesus. AiG’s message proclaims nothing more than “MY! rights,” the antithesis of the cross.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident with this group: this campaign expresses AiG’s general posture which truncates the grace and good news of Christ.

About The Author

Renea McKenzie

(Editor in Chief) is a poet whose work often centers around the relationships between nature and the city, loss and love, faith and protest. She holds an MLA in English Literature and an MA in African American Studies. In between her two Masters degrees, Renea took a "gap year" to study theology at the famous L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. L'Abri is also where she read the Harry Potter saga for the first time and fell in love with the characters and the story's triumph of sacrificial love. Renea leads an incredibly talented creative writing group at her church and spends a fair amount of time binging books and Netflix and swing dancing at the historic Sons of Hermann Hall.

“AiG’s message proclaims nothing more than ‘MY! rights,’ the antithesis of the cross.”

I wonder if you could explain your position here a little more clearly for those of us who don’t have the same reaction to such a billboard. “MY rights” isn’t the antithesis of the cross when it’s MLK saying it.

Maybe you think it’s the antithesis of the cross when that’s ALL someone says. But it’s not all AIG says.

Maybe you think the problem is that “MY rights” is all they bothered to put on a billboard. So would you have said the same thing about a billboard from MLK that contained only that component of the message? I can’t say that I would.

Hi Mark. You raise a good question. On one level, the difference lies more in the ‘how’ than the ‘what.’ It’s the difference between MY/OUR rights, and my/our rights. Know what I mean? It’s also a matter of what each group is responding to. AiG is upset about the resistance they encountered regarding their Arc Project–it sure is difficult for me to compare that to the inhumane treatment black folks in America were facing when they organized their very ‘turn the other cheek’ campaign of non violence. I’m trying to think of something I could cherry-pick out of an MLK speech that would communicate the same message as this billboard, and while I’m having a difficult time thinking of something, even if it were there, it’d have to be cherry picked. Since the SCLC didn’t have the resources for such an billboard, it is difficult to imagine what theirs might have looked like. But this billboard is so… two-faced. It claims its intended audience is intolerant liberals, but do they honestly think this sort of thing will be effective upon such an audience? Will it further the Gospel? No. What it will do (has done) is bolster AiG’s current constituency–it’s preaching to the choir, and it isn’t a message of Grace. Rather it equates the cross with the Second Amendment.

“It’s the difference between MY/OUR rights, and my/our rights. Know what I mean?”

No, in fact I have no idea what you mean—unless you’re just plain wrong as a result of missing the point: either AIG’s point about OUR rights as six-day creationists, or my point that MLK could have said the same thing about OUR rights as African American folk (on the possibility of him saying which, see below).

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“it sure is difficult for me to compare that to the inhumane treatment black folks in America were facing”

They think their rights are being denied them. They think six-day creationists are being treated as second-class citizens with respect to tax status, etc. If they are right in thinking this, then the difference between AIG and MLK is only a question of degree.

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“Will it further the Gospel? No.”

They really think it will, or at least could. They aren’t two-faced at all. The most you can reasonably accuse them of in this regard is being clueless about the efficacy of their rhetorical strategy. (A very plausible accusation!)

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“it is difficult to imagine what theirs might have looked like.”

It’s easy for me! I’m a philosopher; we imagine things like this for a living! If it’s too hard for you to imagine it, then–I BEG YOU–don’t say anything else about it! There wouldn’t be any point in replying to a question you don’t understand.

But if you can, then get over the difficulty and just imagine it: In a nearby possible world, MLK and his team put up a nearly identical film clip on a billboard: “Thank God for freedom,” the cross, “intolerant white friends,” etc. It’s a ridiculously brief message which is meant to be taken in context of all the other things MLK says.

I asked what I believed, and still (perhaps delusionally) believe is a simple question: In this possible world, would you make the same critique of MLK?

I only ask because I don’t understand your criticism of AIG. My answer to this question is “No,” but I could at least understand a “Yes” answer. And, assuming that whatever principle motivates a “Yes” answer also motivates your criticism of AIG, then I think I could understand that as well.

The SCLC would never have put up a billboard like the one you described. They would not have, for one thing, misunderstood (to use your more generous assumption) their audience so badly–especially at their relative point of organizational maturity (for as long as AiG has been doing what they’ve been doing, they *should* know better than to think such a billboard would be fruitful).

This has been one of the more depressing failures of communication I’ve experienced lately, but I’m not ready to give up just yet!

So this thought experiment doesn’t work for you. I’m reasonably confident that (and here’s a new thought experiment!) if this thought experiment worked for you, or if some similar thought experiment worked for you, your answer would be “Yes.”

The (original) thought experiment does work for me, and helps to confirm that I do not share this particular criticism of AIG. (I might share others, and I’m very friendly to criticisms of the rhetorical strategy.)

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So I answer “No.” But why do I answer “No”? Probably for the reason that they did not intend for any emphasis on “MY rights” (or on “OUR rights as six-day creationists”) to be taken apart from contextual things . . . things like the Gospel, their broader campaign to defend biblical inerrancy, and the first amendment (not the second) which protects freedom for atheists as well as for six-day creationists–and under the auspices of which the two groups should be able to be friends. They say on their site, “Our intention is to direct people to the Answers in Genesis website, where they will learn the gospel of Jesus Christ and that God’s Word is trustworthy and true.”

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This brings me to three other points. First, I’m not even convinced that there is any intended emphasis on their rights rather than on the rights of all.

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Second, I’m not making any assumption more generous than the mere assumption that AIG are not filthy liars.

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Third, their assumption that their short message would be taken in light of context was reasonable. To a small extent, it worked for you, and that’s why you knew this billboard had some connection to the Ark project in Kentucky.

(This last remark assumes that all I can access of the billboard’s text is all there was. I can’t see the vids. All the vids seem to be on YouTube, which I can’t access from my physical location.)

Thanks for this response, Mark. You’re right, the thought experiment doesn’t work for me, and you’re also right that if I felt freer to imagine such a scenario, I’d answer, “Yes.”

My biggest problem with AiG (in this particular instance and in general, really) revolves around the *how* more than the *what* of their message. I take issue what what’s being said too, but how it’s being said is even more disconcerting.

Not only is it ineffective. It reads like a drive-by taunt: “Hey you intolerant liberals! You think you can keep Christianity out of the public square? Well, watch this!” *stands smugly, arms crossed*

To borrow from my former colleague at Probe Ministries, who, with his more ‘insider’ perspective, is likely better able to communicate what I’m trying to say:

“My problem is this. On the one hand, with a view to the intended audience, it is ineffective. What do they care what people think who believe the universe was created less than 10,000 years ago? (I’m trying to convey their attitude about creation matters here, not mine.) On the other hand, with a view to AIG’s constituency, it would likely be considered (by many, surely not all) to be a bold riposte against the wicked forces that are trying to take away our nation. They can feel really good–even righteous–about, effectively, doing nothing, and then blame the ineffectiveness on the enemy.

An all-too-typical formula: Expose some bad situation that everyone who doesn’t live in a bomb shelter in the middle of nowhere already knows about. Then come up with a loud, brash, and oh-so-bold response that’s almost guaranteed to accomplish nothing. Don’t forget the appeal for money, appropriately placed after one for prayer. Then, after the fact, when the bold act is mocked, sigh deeply and point to the mockery as further evidence of the evil being exposed. But be satisfied that one has stood for truth.

P.S. A brief note to these fellow Christians: ‘Dear AIG. You may not have heard that the US has long since stopped being a Christian nation (if it ever really was), which means that people observing your signs will likely not know what the cross means. Unless you are merely calling for freedom, and are not concerned with presenting the gospel, please explain.'”

This last bit from my colleague responds to, among other things, the assumption that their short message will be taken in a broader context. I am, in point of fact, not their intended audience. The “intolerant liberals” they call out and the average passerby on the street isn’t likely to be aquatinted AiG let alone their Ark Project.

“It reads like a drive-by taunt: ‘Hey you intolerant liberals! You think you can keep Christianity out of the public square? Well, watch this!’ *stands smugly, arms crossed*”

This might be true. I rather doubt I’d read it that way myself if I could read it. But at least I can understand this criticism, and I won’t object to it as a criticism of the how or of even of how it reads.

But it does not apply to their intentions as stated on the AiG website, which are much better, and I take AiG at their word when they state these intentions. (I hammered out the outlines of a blog post on this; I hope I don’t have to use it.)

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Let me see: What else is new? Well, there’s a new emphasis on ineffectiveness with a majority of the audience. No objection.

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I commend the strong case that the audience cannot be reasonably assumed to take the billboard in context! I suppose this could be correct.

(But I can’t reconsider my opinion on this without at least knowing whether the billboard gave AiG’s website, and I can’t see the vids.)